Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02). Wilson sent a letter to the Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and Ranking Member Jim McCrery requesting the Committee hold a hearing on the "Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2007." They seek to make permanent the $10,000 child adoption tax credit, which is set to expire in 2010.
Wilson introduced the bill at the beginning of the 110th Congress. It currently has 125 cosponsors, including Chairman Rangel. Seventy cosponsors joined Wilson in sending the letter. Please find the text of the letter and signors below.
Following that, please find sample letter that each of us need to send to Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and Ranking Member Jim McCrery and to each of our respective legislators.
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Please CC all letters to: email@AdvocatePublications.com
** ALSO NEEDED: If you are a professional, an author, an expert in adoption or child welfare, or representative of an organization whose name we can use as opposing this bill, PLEASE ADVISE (via a comment or email to: email@AdvocatePublications.com). Please try to encourage those you know of to so do.
May 21, 2007
Dear Chairman Rangel and Ranking Member McCrery:
We respectfully request that the House Committee on Ways and Means consider H.R. 471, the "Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2007," during the 110th Congress. This important legislation will make permanent the $10,000 child adoption tax credit currently set to expire in 2010.
The desire to see children grow up in healthy, happy environments with loving parents knows no party boundaries. To this end, Congress originally passed and President Clinton signed a $5,000 tax credit ($6,000 for domestic special-needs adoptions) per adoptive family. This credit was set to expire in December 2001. In May 2001, Congress took steps to extend this credit to 2010 and increase the tax credit to $10,000. We are once again facing a looming deadline that threatens to compromise the ability of average American families to adopt.
This legislation has been well received by many Members of Congress. It currently has 125 cosponsors, 12 whom sit on the Committee on Ways and Means. We are hopeful that this legislation will be enacted and make the dream of family a permanent reality for many Americans.
We appreciate your work on behalf of the loving parents desiring to expand their families, and we respectfully urge you hold a hearing on this important legislation at the earliest possible date.
Sincerely,
Joe Wilson, Patrick J. Murphy, Kevin Brady, John Lewis, James Sensenbrenner, Solomon Ortiz, Ralph Hall, Bart Gordon, Duncan Hunter, James McGovern, Chris Smith, Vic Snyder,
Dan Burton, Robert Wexler, Paul Gillmor, Dennis Moor, Ron Paul, Mark Udall, Roscoe Bartlett, Lincoln Davis, Ken Calvert, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Pete Hoekstra, Nancy Boyda,
Don Manzullo, Steve Cohen, Barbara Cubin, Steve Kagen, Dan Lungren, Tim Walz, Sue Myrick, Mark Souder, Todd Tiahrt, Zach Wamp, Dave Weldon, Vito Fossella, John Shimkus, Heather Wilson, Robin Hayes, Lee Terry, Todd Akin, John Boozman, Ander Crenshaw, Jo Ann Davis,
Mike Ferguson, Darrell Issa, Jeff Miller, Rodney Alexander, Gresham Barrett, Rob Bishop,
Marsha Blackburn, Ginny Brown-Waite, Michael Burgess, Trent Franks, Scott Garrett, Jim Gerlach, John Kline, Marilyn Musgrave, John Campbell, Mike Conaway, Luis Fortuno, Randy Kuhl, Patrick McHenry, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Connie Mack. Ted Poe, Jean Schmidt, David Davis, Jim Jordan, Bill Sali, and Tim Walberg
PROPOSED SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear Chairman Rangel, 1102 Longworth HOB, Washington, DC 20515 and
Ranking Member McCrery, 1139-E Longworth HOB, Washington, DC 20515:
Regarding H.R. 471, the "Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2007," I am writing to respectfully request that the House Committee on Ways and Means does not increase the child adoption tax credit currently set to expire in 2010.
This seems like a "feel good" win-win bill to support, but it is not. The only tax credit to be considered when the current one expires should be one that is limited to the adoption of the approximately 130,000 children in foster care who cannot be reunited with family members. Helping these children to find permanent homes serves the intended purpose of adoption: to find homes for children who need them. It also reduces the tax burden of supporting them in unstable, and often unsafe, foster homes.
There are far more couples seeking to adopt infants domestically and internationally than there are infants to be adopted. There is thus no need to offer incentives to encourage such adoptions, and doing so is counterproductive because it discourages the adoption of children who need permanent homes.
Infant domestic and international adoptions support unregulated, untrained private entrepreneurs and often involve coercion and exploitation and child trafficking. Those who profit from these private arrangements merely raise their fees as the tax benefit is increased.
While adoption tax benefits sound heartfelt and “right”, we hope that you will think long and hard about supporting tax breaks that might be used toward unethical adoptions and will increase the coffers of unscrupulous baby brokers.
This proposal may sound like the “right” thing to do, and many are supporting it with our intentions without recognizing that it supports those who own and lobby for adoption agencies who profit from adoption and will actually be detrimental to the children you are wanting to help.
Sincerely,
NOTE: If you are writing to known liberal, pro-choice legislator, add:
The Religious Right is promoting these benefits and infant adoption in general - under the guide of helping children in foster care - to further their anti-abortion agenda.
4 comments:
Where do you get your facts? There are children both inside the United States and abroad who are never adopted, they grow up in foster homes or orphanges their entire lives. It is one thing to have your own opinion, but to try and prevent this tax credit from happening to help these children into a permanent home, that is very selfish! You may have had a bad experience, but many people have had a great experience with being adopted.
The facts I get are from UNICEF, the CRC and the Hague all of which recognize the criminal trafficking in children for adoption.
As for children in foster care in this country, if you go back and read my post I am very concerned about the half million of them;
That is why I said:
"The only tax credit to be considered when the current one expires should be one that is limited to the adoption of the approximately 130,000 children in foster care who cannot be reunited with family members. Helping these children to find permanent homes serves the intended purpose of adoption: to find homes for children who need them. It also reduces the tax burden of supporting them in unstable, and often unsafe, foster homes."
Did you miss that?
Selfish? Me? No, it is those who pursue infants and ignore the children who need adopting who are selfish.
Those tax benefits belong to the mothers of the children to help them stay together as a family, not to help tear them apart to meet a demand. Sorry.
Yes. SOME people have good experience being adopted - albeit feeling abandoned and dealing with a loss of their identity. Some don't. Some - a dozen adopted just from Russia alone - wound up DEAD at the hands of their adopters! We need to support this with tax dollars? We need to support the corrupt baby brokers who steal and kidnap babies to sell them to Americans? Sorry, I don't think so and I've been researching adoption for over 30 years. What is your expertise?
I think your way off base. I have adopted a child through foster care as well as a child through private adoption. Trafficking in children in 3rd world countries is a problem, I will not deny it, but reducing the tax credit will not change this. This credit is only benefiting families that may not otherwise be able to adopt. It has a cap for higher income families. Don't say foster care is an alternative. We waited 3 years for our child's adoption to be finalized. To me, that is what is wrong with everything. I think more families would be willing to work with foster care if the system was much more streamlined and having to wait 3 years for the child to know this is his/her forever family is a shame. The real problem is the number of children that end up in foster care. Maybe less children would get in foster care if birth mothers were shown adoption as an alternative instead of keeping the child or aborting the child. Your letter suggests that the US adoption tax credit directly affects the number of children involved in trafficking. From my quick review of the web sites you mentioned, they give information about child/infant trafficking but do not mention any correlation mention about the US adoption tax credit affecting this. These web sites imply the problem is within the country themselves. If a certain country is suspect...the US should shut down adoption for these countries until they clean up their act, which the US does and has done in the past.
Maybe your fight should be to stop abortion. If there were less abortions, there would be more children available for adoption. Families would not have to look outside the country to adopt.
I have no idea where you were going with your note at the bottom of the letter. To me, this simply shows that you have a political agenda.
People need to realize making a baby and giving birth is the easy part. Raising a happy and healthy child is the hard part.
It's not a right to raise a child, it's a privilege!
One other thing I forgot to mention. You are hurting foster care children by not making the adoption tax credit permanent. The tax credit also applies to children in foster care with special need (even if there are no expenses involved with the adoption). A large number of children in foster care are considered special needs due to the situation, health needs, or because they are a part of sibling group.
I'll get off my soapbox now.
Anon,
You said: "It's not a right to raise a child, it's a privilege!"
I say: People need to realize that NO ONE has a "RIGHT" to parent a child - especially someone else's!
You are SO right that it is a privilege - why then is waiting 3 years for that privilege too much to ask?
Why should we rush children away from their families when there is a possibility of rectifying the problems and fixing the family so they can all stay intact? Many problem that result in family separations are temporary in nature - often simply financial. Why not give struggling fmailies tax credits to stay together instead of rushing children from them?
You admit that child trafficking is a problem. Yet you do not see by giving tax credits fr people to have the $$ to support black market adoptions and child trafficking our government is sanctioning such activities!
You say: "Maybe less children would get in foster care if birth mothers were shown adoption as an alternative instead of keeping the child or aborting the child."
How about the alternative of helping natural families remain intact to reduce foster care roles?
Abortion has nothing to do with any of these issues. What would you suggest - FORCING women to bear children so there will be enough to fill the waiting lists of those wanting to adopt?
Adoption is a tragedy. A PERMANENT loss that a new family does not eradicate. Why should we try to increase the numbers???
You say the US should stop adoption from countries that are unethical, coercive and exploitive. Yes, but instead the US fights with countries who want to stop the mass exodus of their chidlren.
Do you understand that "demand" such as your unwilling ness to allow a family time to work out their problems is what creates the corruption in adoption? Are you aware that it adoption ins a $6 billion dollar industry globally?
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